


The Changeling

by havisham



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Background Relationships, Backstory, Child Death, Community: maryrenaultfics, Gen, Ghosts, Literary References & Allusions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 04:25:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec tells a story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Changeling

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the MRF Spooky Story Challenge, 2013. The story borrows very heavily from some very obvious sources and attempts to meld Renaultian fanfiction with the sort of clubby ghost stories from the early 20th century that I adore and often re-read at this time of year. Strictly speaking, it's all AU.

After a lacklustre dinner and a few uneasy drinks, they settled in front of a rather pitiful fire in the grate, ready for the evening’s entertainment. Ralph and Laurie sat side by side on the hearth-rug -- Ralph’s newest flat lacked enough chairs for all of them -- and Alec took the place of honor on the armchair. He was clearly very tired -- because of the impossibly long shift that had just ended, because of Sandy -- and throughout their conversation, he would pause for a moment and his head would dip down a little before jerking up again. Ralph had been plying him with drinks the whole evening, despite his protests that he might still be needed at the hospital later. 

“I’ll make a call,” he said remorselessly, “and tell them an aunt of yours has died and you can’t come in.” 

Alec’s mouth quirked upwards reluctantly. “I can’t do that too often; they’ll think I have fifty aunts.” 

“Heaven forbid,” Laurie said at last, for the sake of saying something. They had not yet talked of the reason Alec had of coming here, of his last and final parting from Sandy. Laurie knew was inevitable that the matter would be broached, and readied himself for it. Ralph seemed perfectly relaxed, tending to the first to the fire and then turning his attention to both of them. 

Alec, despite his earlier look of preoccupation, eyed them both speculatively. “Well, let’s have it then. A story.” 

They both looked instinctively toward Ralph, who said, “Perhaps someone else should tell a story tonight.” 

“Are you feeling quite all right?” Laurie asked, pressed a hand on Ralph’s forehead. It felt warm, but no more than usual. He observed the way the corner of Ralph’s eyes crinkled in amusement. But such naked displays of happiness were not, perhaps, very kind. Especially in front of a friend who was not particularly happy himself. 

Alec did not seem particularly concerned. “What sort of story shall we have?” There was a spark of mischief in his eye as he went on. “A cold autumn night, the three of us gathered around a fire. Wouldn’t a ghost story just complete the scene?”

“Yes, let’s,” Laurie said, relieved that Sandy would not be the subject of the conversation after all. “I can’t think of any at the moment. Alec, will you start?”

Alec nodded. “All right. Now, of course I must preface with by saying that this is all true, and it happened to me, though I’m not sure I believe it myself.”

“Go on then,” Laurie said eagerly, ready for a change of pace. After all, outside, rain fell at a steady rate, and the fire in the grate was hardly enough to keep the chill away. He leaned against Ralph and looked to Alec. 

“Well,” Alec said, drawing up his long legs, “you know, perhaps, that at school I worked rather hard never to be particularly noticed. I succeeded, I believe, for not one of my former classmates can pick me out and say, oh, yes, there’s the boy who went to pieces during exams, or so-and-so, whose father ran off with a barmaid. I was quite a little nobody, neither rich nor poor, nor remarkable.” 

“And modest, too,” Ralph said. 

“Quite! When I was twelve, I had a friend named Peter, one of a few. Well, I say he was a friend, but really, we were only ever friendly towards each other. He was even more of a nobody than I. He had it worse -- while I attracted no attention, he attracted too much. In every school -- every form -- there is a scapegoat, and unluckily for Peter, he was it.” 

Alec paused, and said, “You needn’t look at me in that way, Ralph, surely you know not every school was as well-managed as your own.” 

“I didn’t say anything,” Ralph said, with a raised brow. 

“I can’t quite imagine you as a child,” Laurie began meditatively. “Or being overlooked and without without many friends.” 

“I didn’t spring fully-formed from the forehead of Zeus, unlike some,” Alec said pointedly, looking at Ralph. 

“Continue your story,” Ralph said mildly. “You haven’t even come to the ghost yet.”

Laurie shifted in his seat and his bent leg bumped against Ralph’s. He could not quite conceal his growing physical discomfort. Both Ralph and Alec noticed, and the next few minutes were devoted to dragging out a chair from one of the other rooms for Alec, and installing Laurie in the armchair, despite his protests. 

“It’s all right, really,” Laurie said, feeling as coddled as an infant. “Don’t fuss, please. Alec, go on with your story. I’m interested, honestly.” 

“Well, I don’t think it’s very interesting myself,” Alec said, after all was settled again. “At least not yet. But as I was saying, poor Peter had shot up like a weed the year before, until he was a half a head taller than the rest of us. His hair was very fair, almost white, and his brows and lashes were not much darker. He was a strange-looking child, no doubt, what they would have called a changeling in centuries past.” 

Ralph interrupted again, ignoring the sad shake of Alec’s head. “Your friend Peter reminds me of someone.” 

“Sandy, you mean?” Alec said bluntly. “Perhaps, but I’d hazard to guess that the resemblance was quite superficial. One shouldn’t read too much into it.”

And here he gave Ralph an ironic look that even Laurie could not exactly ignore. 

Alec hadn’t truly spoken of Sandy since he had come through the door. Of course, both Laurie and Ralph knew the story well enough. It had ended better than either of them expected -- Sandy had been transferred away from Bridstow, and had gone. If there had been difficulties along the way, Alec did not say. Of course there were plenty of theories, none of them flattering. 

“We won’t interrupt again, Alec,” Laurie said hurriedly, “go on.” 

Alec did. He said, “I think I was his friend almost by accident, because we were thrown together very often. When he was with me, he was often ignored as well, to his relief. At any rate, we were friendly, and that was the state of it come summer-holidays.

I’d had a letter from home -- my father, an army doctor -- had received an unexpected promotion, and he and my mother would be on a steamship, heading for India. Understandably, I was rather cast down. I had looked forward to getting away from school for a little while, and now it seemed that I would be forced to stay on there, or make do with a visit to my great-aunt Violet and her flatulent lapdog. 

Peter found me brooding over the letter and offered another solution. ‘Come home with me’, he said, and I, astonished, confessed that I did not even know where he lived. We went to one of the older boys who had an interest in geography and had a map of England that we could look though. After some searching we found the location of Peter’s house -- very near the town of Rye. I was quite excited to go. The place was about two miles from the sea, though Peter warned me that his family rarely went there at at all. But that hardly mattered to me. 

The weeks passed quickly after that. I wrote to my parents, got permission to spend the holidays with Peter and his family. When the day came, we were both bundled away into a railway carriage, heading south. I remember very little about the journey down. I suppose I must’ve slept. Often I would wake again, and find that Peter was not there. I did not mind it; he had a reputation for wandering at school. He did it even at nights. 

That, almost with everything else, contributed to his unpopularity. 

As the train crept closer to Rye, Peter began to ask me a question. “Alley,” he said slowly -- a name no one had called me before or since -- “do you believe in ghosts?” 

“Ghosts!” I exclaimed scornfully, offended at the very question. Was I a baby, who should be frightened at any silly story that my nursemaid should come up with? Peter saw my expression and lapsed into silence. 

But my curiosity was piqued and I asked, as persuasively as I could, “Why, Peter, what is the matter? Is it your house that’s haunted?” 

“No,” he said, biting his lip. “Not as such. Never mind, it’s silly, you’re right not to believe it.” Then he launched into a long and very detailed story, meant to distract me from his question. I can’t remember what it was about, now, but it did succeed in distracting me. I forgot all about it until -- later. 

We were met at the train station by a grim-faced old man who introduced himself as Adam, who nonetheless, greeted Peter very civilly. He extended this civility to me as well, and the journey on his dog-cart to Peter’s house was rather a jolly one. I was born in one city and raised in another; I had never had a taste for country living. But now I looked at everything with wide-eyed wonder. The countryside in June was very pretty, green and lush. And Peter’s house, when we came to it, was far larger than I expected. 

It was almost a ruin, by the time I saw it. Its name I’d rather not say -- it became quite notorious a few years ago, long after the family had vacated it, but still… Anyway, the family, which I will describe to you now, was a small one. Peter was the youngest of two children. His eldest sister was already married and moved away by this time. His father had been killed during the war -- not in battle, but in an automobile accident in one of the narrow, twisting roads that led to the house. Peter lived alone here with his mother, who was extraordinarily beautiful. 

In looks, she was very much like Peter himself, but what on him seemed almost perverse, was on her delicately, charmingly shaped. Her hair was quite white, and I wondered if she was older than than she seemed, though her face was not lined. Her eyes were enormous and china-blue. 

She was blind, and had been since a childhood bout of measles.

She greeted Peter affectionately, and through him, made me understand that I was the first friend her son had brought home with him. Awkwardly, I sought to assure of her of -- what, I was not sure. I wanted her to think well of me, at least. She laughed, quite silently, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. 

We did not often see her, except at meal-times. The house, which I described as a ruin, was really a child’s delight. There were many places to explore, little nooks in which to hide. It had once been a dwelling of some great family, whose crest still emblazoned its gates. But Peter’s father had bought it late in the last century in a distressing condition, and had been in the process of renovating it when he was killed. The exterior was a hodge-podge of styles, from Tudor to Georgian and a particularly ugly strain of Victorian. That, being the most modern part of the house, was where the family lived. 

I was given the daughter’s room, only two doors down from Peter. It was a pleasant-enough room, with windows facing the south and a rather overgrown garden. There was no doubt about it being a girl’s room, from the chintzy wallpaper and delicate white furniture. I did not mind sleeping there -- not as much as I suppose I should have. The first night, I noticed nothing wrong. There were a few noises outside my door, but one doesn't learn to sleep in a whole dormitory full of boys without developing an ability to ignore such things. 

Our days were spent, as I said, exploring the house and the grounds, and the countryside beyond both. There were ruins, a few minutes’ walk from the house. It was nothing more than circle of broken stone, which became in our fevered imaginations, a wizard’s tower, a dread dungeon from which princesses were to be rescued. But even at that early age, I was not especially interested in procuring princesses, and so I would often stop our games and pick out a sunny spot and begin to read a book, filched from the dusty library. It was quiet there, with only the low buzz of insects and murmur of a river nearby. Peter had disappeared -- wandering, again, and I was absorbed in my book. 

I nearly didn’t notice the stag beetle crawling over the pages until a short giggle distracted me. Peter was standing quite close. I examined its shiny brown pincers with much interest, and asked where he had gotten it. After hiding his disappointment moderately well, he agreed to show me. 

I don’t want to bore you now with such boyhood recollections -- except for a thing that happened afterward. The beetle’s home was deeper in the woods than I had ever gone before -- a tree long since felled by a storm. I let him go and he fluttered away. I stepped closer into the tall grasses that surrounded the tree and felt my shoe sink down into the muck and get caught on something, something both hard and brittle. I tried to shake it loose, but I could not. I shouted for Peter to help me and together, we tugged out both my shoe and the thing that had caught it. 

It was something I had never seen outside of books before, but have seen often since. It was a human skull, a small one, as if belonging a child.” 

“You’ve never told me this story before,” was all Ralph said, after a long moment. 

“Who did it belong to? What did you do?” Laurie asked, bursting to know. 

“What could I do?” Alec said, ignoring Ralph’s veiled accusation. “We felt around to see if there were more bones. There were -- a vertebra, some ribs, a femur. I was extremely shaken. Even with the violence my shoe had done to the skull, it seemed clear to me that whoever this skeleton -- and it was a skeleton, more or less complete -- whoever it belonged to had died here, or had been brought here and rolled under this tree, and forgotten. There were signs of violence on the body, signs that I was certain we had not put there. Peter, after a thinking it over, said that we ought to tell Adam about this. He insisted that his mother not be told. 

He said it would only upset her. 

“Well, it upsets me too,” I said, not quite sure what I was protesting against. 

“This body could be hundreds or thousands years old, it could be someone from the tower, anyone,” Peter continued on, doggedly. “I won’t have my mother being disturbed by it. Promise me, Alec. Promise me you won’t tell her about it!” 

Feeling as if I were in the wrong, I agreed. We shook on it, both of our hands slick with mud. 

After going back to the house, Peter disappeared again. I went to bathe, and was roundly scolded by the maid who came to gather my things and draw my bath for being so very dirty. As I got dressed, I saw movement from outside the window. Adam, followed by Peter, made their way through the garden and disappeared into the woods. Both of them were carrying shovels, and Adam carried a burlap sack slung over his back. 

I belatedly thought to crouch down, to avoid being seen, but both of them were intent on their task. I felt sick in my stomach, as if I was back in the woods, looking at that pitiful collection of bones that had once been a human being. Perhaps he had been a boy like me, who liked to run and shout, read and play. 

It seemed obvious to me that the police should be called, but when I broached the subject to Peter, he wouldn’t hear of it. Adam, he said, had agreed that the skeleton was very old, and had buried it elsewhere. Peter, usually so shy and retiring, seemed to have completely changed his tune. 

He suggested, forcefully, that I forget this unpleasantness. Instead, he said, would I like to visit the sea-shore? Adam would take us. 

I declined the invitation and begged off a game of chess downstairs. Instead I lay in bed, unable to sleep. Long after midnight, the noises started again. It was as if someone was running up and down the hallway outside my door. I had heard this noise before, but had paid it no mind. I was naturally a heavy sleeper, and besides, I had assumed that the footsteps belonged to Peter. Now, I was no longer so sure. 

As the noises continued, I crept out of bed, careful to make no more noise than I possibly could. As I approached the door, it seemed the running had changed into pace, like someone worrying the carpet outside my door. The footsteps were light -- not a man’s tread, but rather, one of a child, lighter than mine. Carefully, carefully, I turned the lock. It sounded as if someone was stamping outside my door. 

I threw the door open. Of course, there was no one there. 

After our discovery, I did not feel comfortable in Peter’s presence. Against all my previous expectations and experience, I longed to go back to school. Reluctantly, I agreed to the long-hoped for trip to the sea-shore. But that too was destined to be a disappointment. Though the day dawned bright and the sun was out, the sea seemed to darken as we watched, and raindrops the size of pebbles dropped on our heads. We beat a hasty retreat to a hotel restaurant and had a dreary luncheon. Afterward, the ride home was silent, and wet.

I was prepared, that night. Before the clock over the mantelpiece struck midnight, I sprang out of bed and dressed. Though it was only mid-August, the house was already cold. After struggling to put on a second jumper, I heard the first noise. Someone was running down the hallway outside my door. I grabbed the torch that I had taken from the kitchen and switched it on. Wasting no more time, I bounded to the door and waited until the steps were nearly at my door. I thrust myself into the dark hallway, expecting every moment to come face to face with Peter. But there was no one there. 

The hall was silent, except for the sound of my heart beating, which sounded to me like the loudest noise in the world. If my room had been chilly, it was positively freezing out here. My breath showed white and foggy in front of my face, and the torchlight turned wild circles around me. Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw a quick movement. Hair so blond as to be white streaked past me. I cried out, “Peter!” But the specter did not stop until it had reached the end of the hall. 

He was waiting. 

I said again, weakly, “Peter?” 

He was a small figure, shorter than I, and much shorter than Peter. 

He shook his head, once. 

I trained my torch to guide my steps -- I found that the light went through the white figure in front of me when it hit him, and the figure seemed to waver and disappear. He would look back, once or twice, to see if I was following. I was. Down the hall we went, and then down the steps. The figure passed a patch of moonlight on the head of the stairs, and it seemed to me that his hair looked black now, matted down and wet. 

_That’s blood_ , a cold voice in the back of my head said. _Someone knocked his head in._

My torch wobbled in my hands, and I stopped in mid-step. The figure stopped too, closer to me now than he had ever been before. I could see his face for the first time. It was a beautiful face, like those cherubs one sees in Renaissance paintings. Its expression was sorrowful and impish at the same time. He nodded towards a door, down the hall. A thin seam of light illuminated it. I took a step towards it, and the figure disappeared. 

I was not half-way down the hall when I heard a woman’s voice say, “Peter?” It was Peter’s mother’s voice, and I had been lead to her bedroom door. She opened it and stepped out. Her hair spilled out from her behind her ear. 

“Peter?” she said again.

“No,” I said faintly. “No, I’m Alec.” 

“Alec!” She gave me a faint smile. “Can’t you sleep? I can have Mrs. Weathers make you a cup of cocoa, if you’d like.” 

“I’m not thirsty,” I said, my voice stronger. 

“Would you like to come in? There’s a fire here, and you sound cold.” 

“Thank you,” I said, and walked into her room for the first time. It was completely unlike my own mother’s room. There was a small bed in the corner of it, but it looked mostly unslept in. A large fireplace dominated the room, flanked by a generous armchair that was draped with blankets. The mantlepiece was empty, except for a single photograph, framed in silver. 

It was of a little boy, maybe four or five years of age. He wore a sailor-suit and looked seriously at the camera. Without a doubt, he was the same child as the one who I had seen in the hall, minutes ago. 

“Please sit,” Peter’s mother said, indicating a smaller armchair, opposite the first. “Peter often sits there on the nights he’s home.” 

I did as I was told, wondering all the while how I should broach the subject of the boy. We talked about the end of my holidays, and what I wanted to do after I left school. I told her that my father was a doctor, and my grandfather before him. 

Finally, I said, in what I hoped was an artless manner, “That photograph on the mantlepiece…” 

Peter’s mother shook her head and a line appeared in between her brows. “You wonder why I have a photograph there when I cannot see it?” She gave me a sad smile. “It is simple -- that is all I have of my son, Miles.” 

She bent her head a little, and touched her face with both hands, before drawing up them away again. 

“Miles,” she said again, her eyes very bright. She spoke as though she wanted to conjure him up with the strength of her longing, and her grief. Despite myself, I looked around the room, but we were quite alone. 

In a sad, composed voice, she told me more about him. 

Miles was Peter’s brother, two years younger than him. He had been something of a miracle for her and her husband, having been born after the doctors said that they should expect no more children. Miles loved everyone, and was loved by everyone. She smiled, slightly, remembering him. 

But then he had died, drowned in the river. It was supposed that his body had been swept out to sea. 

“He was so very little,” she said distantly, her fingers twisting a long piece of yarn, over and over again. “He never learned how to swim.” Slowly, painfully, she got up. It was as if she had transformed again. For the first time, she looked quite old. 

“I’m sorry, Alec,” she said. “Perhaps you ought to go to bed.” 

“Yes,” I said, getting up. She followed me out and murmured something about sweet dreams. 

The noises stopped after that night, and after that summer ended, I never saw Peter again. My parents saw fit to put me in a different school, where I worked again to be invisible.” 

After Alec had stopped speaking, there was a long, long silence. Ralph got up and began to make drinks. Laurie sank back into his seat, thoughtful. When Ralph came back, Laurie was surprised -- but exceedingly grateful -- to find a hot cup of tea in his hands. 

Sipping at it, he asked Alec, “Now, was this true, or did you just invent it now?” 

“Alec is very good at distracting himself -- and others,” Ralph said, coming back again. He was drinking something that was distinctly _not_ tea. 

Alec seemed to be having something in that met in the middle. Putting his cup down, Alec smiled benignly at them both. He said, “Oh ye of little faith! It’s all true, to a point.” 

Laurie said, “But if true, it’s an awful thing. Do you really think your friend Peter could have killed his own brother? It did not seem as though he knew where the child was buried, at least.” 

“Perhaps it was an accident,” Alec said, massaging his temples. “I only know that it affected me deeply, at least. I think I learned a little of how -- horribly fleeting life could be.” 

“And thus, your vocation became clear,” Laurie said. 

“Very noble of me, I think,” Alec agreed. 

“If the story happens to be true,” Ralph said. 

“True,” Alec said with a maddening smile. 

“But why hide it? Why do it at all?” Laurie said, still bothered. He was not one to let a thing go that easily. 

“Changelings,” Ralph spoke up suddenly, and at Laurie’s inquiring look, he continued: “Perhaps they, too, would rather not be replaced.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my betas, Naraht and Elleth. All remaining mistakes are mine, etc, etc.


End file.
